I never used Lotus Agenda, but I’m told it was a popular productivity tool for MS-DOS in the late 80s. I’ve been on a retro software rediscovery kick lately, so I’ve decided to give it a whirl and write about my experiences. There is something that appeals to me about using long-abandoned software. Perhaps it’s update fatigue, there’s certainly no need to dread a major update breaking something!
Regardless, I’ve always enjoyed finding new productivity tools to try out, and I’m not afraid of steep learning curves or getting my hands dirty. I’ll usually choose powerful and flexible software over simplicity.
At the moment I mostly use taskwarrior, but I’ve lost count of all the others I’ve tried!
Agenda is a PIM, a Personal Information Manager. That term has fallen out of fashion, I think a quick summary might be “anything that manages those small pieces of information we all deal with”. Things like contacts, todo lists, notes, and so on.
I found a 1989 episode of the TV show Computer Chronicles that discussed how people thought about PIMs at the time.
At the 21-minute mark there’s a demonstration of Lotus Agenda, but it’s not easy to follow, watch the clip and you’ll see what I mean. Still, you do see some interesting features:
Some form of NLP is used to extract dates and names from free-form text.
Categories are a little like what we would call tags today.
You can create custom dashboards called views.
Apparently this was an $800 software package (That’s $395 adjusted for inflation from 1989), yikes! You don’t have to pay that, Lotus made it available for free when development ceased.
In preparation for trying out Agenda, I found a copy of the original manuals on eBay for a few dollars. Just look at this monster, the user guide alone is over 700 pages, that’s not including the supplementary guides. The supplements I have are Working with Macros, Working with Definition Files, Setting up Agenda, and a few miscellaneous leaflets.
I guess that’s my bedtime reading taken care of for a while. I actually received the macro reference still in the original shrink wrap, it almost seems a shame to open it!
The Sky Angel series has long been a staple for fans of high-quality Japanese media, known for its polished production and focus on rising stars. Vol. 50 serves as a milestone for the franchise, choosing Miyazawa to carry the mantle for this golden anniversary edition. Her appearance is not just a showcase of physical beauty but a masterclass in the "Fullred" aesthetic—a bold, vibrant style that emphasizes confidence and striking color palettes.
Before her career in AV, she worked as a model for a major cosmetics brand, which contributed to her reputation for having exceptional skin quality and "beauty-pageant" facial features. The "Sky Angel" Look: Like others in the series, such as Maria Ozawa Ameri Ichinose
It remains, in the words of a 2009 blog commenter on Akiba Blog : “The red you can’t look away from.”
If you're looking for more specific information, could you please clarify what you're interested in (e.g., photos, interview, fashion trends)?
on unverified sites, as these are common vectors for malware. Always use reputable archival platforms.
: Featuring Miyazawa in structured red gowns and tailored blazers, leaning into the "Fashion Navi" trend of bold, monochromatic power dressing.
Here is where the write-up gets fascinating. The term is largely forgotten today, but in the late 2000s, it was a buzzword on Japanese P2P forums and DVD review blogs. Part neologism, part brand concept, "Fashionavi" refers to a short-lived micro-genre where AV production studios hired real stylists from Koenji and Shimokitazawa to costume performers not for fantasy, but for street authenticity .
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You probably need to use other applications or services, and sync your data with your phone. Writing and reading files from outside DOSEMU is no problem, so if you just want to sync files this is no problem.
As it’s a terminal application you can also just SSH in and run it.
You probably also want to have your appointments sync with your calendar or something.
Agenda can export items to a format called STF, Structured Text File. The specification for that format is (mostly) documented in the manual, but it didn’t catch on.
I wrote a quick parser that can convert it to JSON, so now you can use modern tools like jq to manipulate and transform the data however you wish. The Sky Angel series has long been a
And so on, there are more examples in the README. If you can exchange data with other apps, you can now use stfjson to generate the correct format.
You can automate exports, Agenda has “Special Actions” in the category options. Alternatively, if it’s just a one off or for a macro, you can use the Transfer > Export command. Her appearance is not just a showcase of
Commands
In DOSEMU, the UNIX command will invoke a shell command on the host.
C:\>unix uname
Linux
If there is a commandline tool that will import data, e.g. a TaskWarrior user might use task add drop off laundry at dry cleaners, then you can create a macro in Agenda that simply launches that command.
You can use something like {F10}ULUNIX task {TYPE;%TASKTEXT}.
Import
Surprisingly, Agenda supports importing arbitrary text data. One of the manuals that came with agenda was Working with Definition Files, which explains how to write a configuration file that allow Agenda to parse anything.
It even has a Regular Expression tutorial, pretty impressive for a 1980s consumer product.
I quite like Agenda. It does many things well, but it’s absolutely true you could replicate most of it’s functionality with modern tools. However, I do enjoy using it, and I’m a big enough nerd that I quite like the challenge of using retro software.
I think the closest modern equivalent to Agenda would be taskwiki. It’s not a perfect match, but if you liked some of what you saw here but are not interested in retro software, try it out!
I’m still using Agenda after two weeks, and about 40% of the way through the manual 😂
The Sky Angel series has long been a staple for fans of high-quality Japanese media, known for its polished production and focus on rising stars. Vol. 50 serves as a milestone for the franchise, choosing Miyazawa to carry the mantle for this golden anniversary edition. Her appearance is not just a showcase of physical beauty but a masterclass in the "Fullred" aesthetic—a bold, vibrant style that emphasizes confidence and striking color palettes.
Before her career in AV, she worked as a model for a major cosmetics brand, which contributed to her reputation for having exceptional skin quality and "beauty-pageant" facial features. The "Sky Angel" Look: Like others in the series, such as Maria Ozawa Ameri Ichinose
It remains, in the words of a 2009 blog commenter on Akiba Blog : “The red you can’t look away from.”
If you're looking for more specific information, could you please clarify what you're interested in (e.g., photos, interview, fashion trends)?
on unverified sites, as these are common vectors for malware. Always use reputable archival platforms.
: Featuring Miyazawa in structured red gowns and tailored blazers, leaning into the "Fashion Navi" trend of bold, monochromatic power dressing.
Here is where the write-up gets fascinating. The term is largely forgotten today, but in the late 2000s, it was a buzzword on Japanese P2P forums and DVD review blogs. Part neologism, part brand concept, "Fashionavi" refers to a short-lived micro-genre where AV production studios hired real stylists from Koenji and Shimokitazawa to costume performers not for fantasy, but for street authenticity .
Don't miss out on the chance to experience the ultimate in fashion, lifestyle, and entertainment with Sky Angel Vol.50, featuring the incomparable Keito Miyazawa. Get your hands on this unmissable issue today and discover a world of beauty, style, and inspiration!
